Maybe a Stupid Zoa Question

whippy · Mar 29, 2010

greysoul said: ↑

Could be a couple things, I've seen it in my own tank. I'm not 100% certain on why they change, what starts it, etc, but I've done some researching. I have observed green pay packers turning into dragon eyes, and I never put DE's in my tank, so where did they come from? Same with my generic green sea mat, they all started tuning red in the center, with a purple ring, from what was mostly a greyish orange with no ing.

It could be that one type of zoa is just growing faster and becoming the dominant species, but nothing is really changing colors, just making way for the faster growing colony. I've seen this, at at first thought it was a color change, then I saw the mats and could see one just grew up over and into the first and pushed aside a few polyps... but that's why they really started to change and I got new colors.

That could be zooxanthellae related. Zoas, like many corals, derive much of their color from their relationship with zooxanthellae, a type of symbiotic algae/dinoflagelate. Zooxanthellae are their own animal and can survive for a short time outside a coral, and can transfer between colonies. If one strain becomes stronger and the lighting conditions favor it's brand of photosynthesis over the another strain then they can and will get into the water column and transfer to another receptive host, at which point that host will slowly be taken over by the stronger zooxanthellae. While it's really organic pigments that make up the wide variety of skin color you see, that skin color will slowly be changed to suit the photosynthetic needs of the zooxanthellae, and the corals seem to know how to do that.

good luck, and be glad you are getting a nice color change, and everything didnt just turn pasty green and brown

-Doug
Click to expand...

Very good point!

So if it is zooxanthellae related then theoretically couldn't all of my corals change color at some point to include the favia, fungia etc?

whippy · Mar 29, 2010

Yeah my main reason for asking is this: Lets say I get an expensive colony like PPEs or something. I don't want my PPEs or whatever I add turning in to RGNs!!

whippy · Mar 29, 2010

Ok they are officially changing color...quickly.

I had 2 bluish heads left that hadn't morphed. I just got home to check them out and they're both flipping RGNs!! :crazy

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Maybe a Stupid Zoa Question

whippy Sailfin Tang

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Maybe a Stupid Zoa Question

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